Nick in the AM: 50 years ago, D.C. came to Pekin to send off Everett Dirksen

Nick Vlahos Journal Star @vlahosnick

Friday

Sep 6, 2019 at 10:07 AMSep 6, 2019 at 1:23 PM

Good morning, troops. It's Friday, Sept. 6.

They don't make U.S. Senators like Everett Dirksen anymore. That could be claimed even before politics in the nation's capital became so dysfunctional.

Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of Dirksen's death. The Republican from Pekin passed away Sept. 7, 1969, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was 73.

Complications from lung-cancer surgery were to blame.

Dirksen represented the Peoria area in the U.S. House before he unseated Havana resident Scott Lucas in the 1950 Senate election. After Dirksen became Senate minority leader, in 1959, his national profile blossomed.

He was instrumental in passage of the landmark Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968. He also was a strong supporter of the Vietnam War.

Dirksen was known for those things as well as his close working relationships with powerful Democrats in D.C. They included President Lyndon Johnson and Mike Mansfield, the Senate majority leader.

But Dirksen also had style to go with substance.

With tousled mane and rich, booming voice, Dirksen was famed for his oratorical skills. He was a frequent guest on national television programs and produced regular addresses that were telecast statewide.

It was no surprise, then, that Dirksen's funeral — held Sept. 11, 1969, in Pekin — became a major event.

More than 80,000 people lined the procession route from the Peoria airport, where Air Force One carried Dirksen's body, to Glendale Memorial Gardens, according to Frank Mackaman. The former head of The Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin wrote an excellent piece about the senator's final days and funeral.

Writing about the funeral in closer-to-real time was legendary Journal Star political reporter Bill O'Connell. In Sept. 12 editions of the newspaper, O'Connell stated about 5,000 people attended a 15-minute memorial service at Dirksen's grave.

The guest list was notable. It included Vice President Spiro Agnew, five members of President Richard Nixon's Cabinet, 42 U.S. Senators and 27 U.S. House members.

Among other attendees were U.S. Sens. Ted Kennedy and Howard Baker, Dirksen's son-in-law; U.S. Rep. Bob Michel; Illinois Gov. Richard Ogilvie; Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley; and Illinois Treasurer Adlai Stevenson III, who in a special election the following year won the Senate seat Dirksen held.

Less notable but equally important might have some other people O'Connell wrote about, in a fashion acceptable in that era:

"Two of the casket bearers were Negroes. Sen. Dirksen played a major role in the passage of each of the last decade's civil rights bills."

After the ceremony, U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, left upon Dirksen's casket a single marigold.

Dirksen long had supported making the marigold the national flower. Smith preferred the rose.

These days, such a dispute probably would cause a Twitter meltdown of epic proportions.

Comity and collaboration in the current Senate, and elsewhere in D.C., is in short supply these days. It's difficult to envision Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer working together in the manner Mansfield and Dirksen did.

It's also difficult to envision Illinois having simultaneously in the Senate the caliber of statesmen like Dirksen and Paul Douglas, a maverick Democrat who was considered serious presidential timber. Our current Senate representation pales dramatically by comparison.

For that matter, Alan Dixon and Paul Simon were a much more dynamic duo than are the Dick Durbin-Tammy Duckworth mediocrity.

As time passes and the Red-Blue divide widens, it's worth remembering things weren't always this way. And it's worth remembering what people like Dirksen accomplished — both on the grand scale and on smaller, personal ones.

"He was able to wield influence when outnumbered (politically in the Senate) 2 to 1 and was able to do it amicably and civilly," Mackaman told the Journal Star in 2012.

"He was able to work with a Democratic White House and have their confidence, work with the Senate Democratic leader and have his confidence, and as a result have a nation or a Congress produce lasting public policy. That doesn't happen anymore."

It sure doesn't.

Also not happening anymore is politicians recording music that becomes a top-40 hit. But Dirksen did exactly that, in 1967 — a spoken-word effort that reached No. 29 on the charts, won a Grammy Award and was co-written by a longtime national TV and radio newsman.

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